


Rumplestiltskin's Sister

by MaryPSue



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 01:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7019743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in fairy tales, wishes come true have a price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rumplestiltskin's Sister

**Author's Note:**

> While I'm crossposting old things, have a half-fic, half-theory from back before S2.

Once upon a time, in a cottage deep in an enchanted forest, there lived a poor man and his wife. Though they had very little money, they had many friends, and loved each other very much. Their happiness was almost complete, except for one thing: they had no child.

When a story begins like this, this is usually the part where the wife makes a wish on a drop of blood fallen to the snow, or a falling star, or a passing fairy takes pity on the couple, and nine months later, a miraculous baby is born.

Unfortunately for this particular couple, however, that’s not how this story goes.

…

Bud Gleeful stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, so abruptly that the woman behind him almost walked into him. She shot him a dirty look as she walked past, but he didn’t notice. His attention was entirely consumed by the billboard.

Dog _gone_ it! That was the third one! Someone kept spraypainting over his li'l angel’s face in the advertisement for the grand “Just Had a Baby Sale” at the car lot, and no matter how many times he replaced it, the vandal just kept coming back! Was there something about his li'l darlin’s face that someone found objection…a…ble…

Bud Gleeful took a few steps forward, looking more closely at the graffiti. Someone had drawn horns and a tail on his li'l darlin’ and given him a tiny pitchfork. All right, that was…that was unnerving, but that was something vandals did, it didn’t mean anything. They’d given _him_ a mustache, too. Didn’t mean anything.

What worried him, what made him feel cold despite the heat of the summer sun and had him looking over his shoulder and shooting distrustful stares at the townspeople, his friends _,_ as they went about their business, was the fact that someone had crossed out ‘baby’ on the sign and written in 'demon’.

Somewhere in this godforsaken town, someone _knew_.

…

You could say that they were visited by a kindly spirit. To call what happened next a miracle, however, would be a stretch indeed.

The poor man’s struggling business took off almost overnight, his profits increasing as his wife’s stomach did. But what should have been the final piece in their perfect happiness, rather, robbed them of it. She grew pale and thin and nervous even as the child inside of her swelled, even as her husband laughed at her fears. Things had never been better for them; how could their darling child be anything but perfect?

And indeed, when at last the child was born, even his mother’s fears were diminished. He came out plump and peachy, weighing nine pounds three ounces and smiling like he knew a secret. Many of these tales have the child born with the skin of a hedgehog, or only three inches high, or sporting some other deformity, but outwardly at least, the couple’s infant son was indeed perfect.

It would take them years to discover that he was, in fact, just as twisted as any fairy-tale beast-child, in ways that no one else could see, _would_ see. But by then, it was already far, far too late.

…

Gideon Gleeful actually jumped nearly a foot straight up into the air with a frightened yelp when his prison cell, already drab and grey, suddenly drained of all colour around him. His cellmate’s snoring stopped, the other convict frozen with his mouth wide and a droplet of drool hanging suspended from his lip, seconds away from falling. No. No no no _no!_ He’d already lost his adoring fans, his freedom, and the love of his life; wasn’t that reckoning enough?

“Wh-what’re you doin’ here? I didn’t summon you!” he shouted, looking around the room for the demon he knew had to be lurking somewhere. Did the stupid thing really care that much about his reputation that he’d kick a man when he was down just as petty revenge for breaking off a deal he couldn’t complete in the first place? That was…well, that was downright unprofessional, was what it was.

He tried, and failed, to tell himself that it wasn’t also terrifying.

“Nope! You didn’t!” said a voice, bright and sunny and oddly, for some unfathomable reason, reminiscent of his marshmallow, if Mabel’s voice was put through a microphone with heavy reverb on. In a tin room. And then played directly into Gideon’s ear.

He most absolutely did not scream like a little girl, although he may have been a bit hasty in turning round. The being that seemed to smile at him without a mouth wasn’t, however, the one that Gideon had expected to see. She (he wasn’t sure just exactly how he knew she was a _she_ , other than the voice) managed to wink at him with only one eye, little black hands clasped in front of her star-shaped form, watching curiously as he scrambled backwards away from her.

“How - how are you here, if I didn’t summon you?” Gideon managed, realizing the answer even as the question left his lips. Of course, someone else must have sent her, and Gideon knew exactly who. _Curse_ Dipper Pines! And curse himself for being stupid enough to go to a demon for help in the first place, no doubt planting the idea in the boy’s head.

The star’s single eye crinkled into a featureless smile, and she let out a delighted giggle. “Oh, don’t look so scared! I’m not here to make a deal,” she said, advancing on Gideon even as he backed away. His back hit the wall, and he glanced behind him, to see that she’d backed him into a corner. No escape.

When he turned back, her single eye filled his vision.

“I’m here to collect on one,” she said, and then there was a feeling a little like his ears popping, but all over, and then he was standing outside himself.


End file.
